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Selbyville

Health department: Customers should visit a doctor

Coastal Point • Tyler Valliant: A Selbyville barbershop was shut down last week for allegedly performing piercings and tattoos, possibly also operating without a barbershop license, and alleged grossly unsanitary conditions.State health officials said they really don’t know just how many people may have potentially been exposed to alleged unsanitary conditions at a Selbyville barbershop that was also allegedly illegally performing tattooing and body-piercing.

On Nov. 28, the Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) ordered closure of the B&B Barber Shop, located at 5 West Church Street, Unit 203, in downtown Selbyville. The shop was ordered to stop performing body-art activities, which were allegedly occurring without a permit, but also to close the barbershop operation for what officials called “grossly unsanitary conditions.”

The sign at that location, located in the Church Street Station shopping center, reads “Boris Barbershop.”

“In this case, the observations included evidence of a rodent infestation, improper disposal of sharps and other conditions that could contribute to transmission of disease,” said Jamie Mack, a DPH policy lead and technical advisor.

Coastal Point • Kerin Magill: Tara Barrett and Holland Lewis in the House of Mercy in Selbyville where the FORGE and REWIND programs are currently located.There are many reasons someone might want to “rewind” their life — to restart it, from a point where they feel they can be successful.

Prison. Drugs. Tough times. Any of those, and more, can derail a life.

Holland Lewis knows what it’s like to come out of prison and not know where to turn, what to do, who to trust. He also knows that it is possible to overcome one’s past, because he has done it.

About a year after finishing a three-year prison sentence and completing his parole period, Lewis is a new father, is engaged to be married and has found success as a chef.

Tara Barrett, co-founder of the FORGE Youth & Family Academy in Selbyville, saw that leadership potential in Lewis.

“He was smart enough to keep his nose clean while he was in prison,” she said. “His life could have been very different. He made one bad choice.”

Despite the fact that the pumpkin crop at Magee Farms’ Selbyville location succumbed to a rainy growing season, the century-old family farm will kick off the weekend with a tribute to TV audiences’ favorite pumpkin patch, followed the next day with more autumn fun at its annual Fall Festival.

As part of an ongoing effort locally, state-wide and nationally, people are being encouraged to visit some of their local police departments this weekend to properly dispose of their unneeded or expired prescription medications.

This year, more than 150 Delaware deaths were suspected overdoses. And 2017 isn’t done.

So, Salem United Methodist Church and Selbyville Police Department partnered to host a community meeting on Thursday, Sept. 28, at 6 p.m. at Salem Center, the community hall behind the church sanctuary.

Two-lane highways are under volume pressure as more houses and vehicles bring people to coastal Delaware. There will be a public meeting to discuss traffic conditions along Route 54 (Lighthouse Road) on Tuesday, Sept. 19, at 12:30 p.m. at the Roxana Volunteer Fire Company’s fire hall.

Coastal Point • Laura Walter: Ana Calles’ crown holds dozens of glittering rhinestones that represent the beauty, poise, intelligence and quick thinking she displayed at the 2017 Miss Hispanic Delaware pageant.Selbyville is home to a new pageant winner and community leader: 17-year-old Ana Calles was crowned Miss Hispanic Delaware this week.

“It’s still very surreal to me, because it’s just something that I’ve been wanting for a long time, and that it’s actually manifested into reality — it’s very surreal,” Calles said.

She has just begun 11th grade at Indian River High School. As the pageant’s only downstate contestant, Calles said she was happy to stand out geographically, despite the necessity of the two-hour drive to the Baby Grand theater in Wilmington’s Grand Opera House for rehearsals and the competition.

Calles represented Mexico in the Aug. 26 program, which celebrates Hispanic culture and is designed to help young ladies develop poise and communication skills. Calles has lived in Selbyville all her life, except for a few years in Mexico when she was younger.

“I was nervous throughout the whole day, but after our opening-number dance, I felt more confident and comfortable on stage,” she said of her very first pageant.

Calles had dreamed of competing for years, but her family had just suffered the painful impact of losing her mother in April.

“I just wanted to make her proud her proud, overall, even though I know just competing made her proud,” Calles said. “I know she was with me that night. I could feel her.”

Coastal Point • Tyler Valliant: Reine Jesel recently celebrated his 100th birthday, surrounded by friends and family at this favorite morning coffee joint, the Selbyville McDonald’s.On almost any morning in the Selbyville McDonald’s, a group of older men can be found laughing together over breakfast.

In the far corner this week, one white-haired fellow with bright eyes and a big grin enjoyed a special spotlight. After all, Reine Jesel had just celebrated his 100th birthday.

He still drives himself to McDonald’s six days a week for a black coffee to read the daily paper (no eyeglasses required). He won’t need to renew his driver license until he’s 105.

“I’m fortunate,” he said.

Most of his life was spent in New Jersey, working as a general contractor in the construction business. He was 85 when he and his wife, Shirley, moved to the outskirts of Frankford about 15 years ago.

All central water systems are required to produce an annual report under the Safe Drinking Water Act. It’s meant to tell people where water comes from, what it contains and how it stacks up against regulatory standards. The Town of Selbyville’s water system report was recently released for the 2016 year.

Coastal Point • Tyler Valliant: Mama’s Black Sheep jams out on stage during the first Locals event at the Freeman Stage at Bayside.For the fifth season, the Freeman Stage at Bayside in Selbyville is hosting its Locals under the Lights performances, so that local up-and-coming artists have the opportunity to further their musical interests while audience members are able to appreciate the local talent.

This summer’s second Locals under the Lights will take place Thursday, Aug. 10.

“We want to help not only expose a variety of art media to people, but we want to be able to let people express their love for music and performing as well,” said Alyson Cunningham, communications and public relations manager for the Freeman Stage.

From 7 to 9 p.m. on Aug. 10, people of all ages are being invited to listen to vocal and instrumental performances from 5th Avenue, Cologne, Hedera SOJO, Bad Avenue Band and Jacob Osias, while sitting on the lawn in front of the stage.

In a quiet area of the Selbyville Public Library’s Delaware Room, there exists the oral histories of 22 people with many, sometimes little-known, memories of the town of Selbyville (first known as Sandy Branch as early as 1778).

Some local property owners may need to break out their lawn mowers a little more often. The Selbyville Town Council voted this week to reduce the maximum allowable height of grass from 12 inches to 8 inches.

The Selbyville Public Library is inviting community members of all ages to join in a game of kickball on June 17 to celebrate the 60th annual Old Timer’s Day.

With the intent of bringing education and entertainment to Selbyville’s yearly celebration, the library decided to launch its first Community Kickball, which will occur at the library’s parking lot from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m.

It’s time to finish the water filtration plant, and Selbyville residents this week approved the latest round of funding for the project. In a special referendum on June 3, residents voted, 62-2, to allow the Town to borrow $500,000 to finish building another water treatment building.

Selbyville is in the homestretch for building a new water treatment system. But the Town needs the public’s help one more time to get the job done.

The Town must go to public referendum to secure $500,000 in what is essentially free money from the Delaware Drinking Water Revolving Fund. The vote will be held June 3 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Town Hall.

Corner bank has existed since 1903

Coastal Point • Tyler Valliant : The PNC Bank branch in Selbyville will close June 16.Selbyville is losing one of its two banks this spring. The PNC Bank at the corner of Church Street and Main Street will permanently close its doors at 3 p.m. on Friday, June 16.

The ATM will remain on-site at 1 West Church Street immediately after the office closes, although there is no timeframe for that availability. It’s a higher-functioning ATM that can process deposits.

Why is the bank closing? Basically, PNC representatives said, people use machines more for banking, and PNC doesn’t need a two-story office building on Church Street anymore.

“Over the last several years, we have been going over an evaluation of our overall branch network,” said PNC spokesperson Marcey Zwiebel. “We’ve also just been looking at data that says the way customers use branches is changing. They’re increasingly using the convenient and alternative channels” — online, mobile or ATM banking — “for many of the basic transactions that they used to use the branch for… We’ve been taking a look at how we can support our customers when and how and where they want.”

“I went through a medical-thriller book phase” as a teen, she said. “I wanted to be an epidemiologist.”

She also had a fondness for art. however, and “I always loved my elementary school art teachers. I always used to play school, too.”

And in her junior year in high school, Hall said, “something just clicked.” She majored in elementary education at Frostburg State University and followed that with a master’s degree at George Mason University in “initiatives in educational transformations,” which involved work on bringing visiting artists to schools on Delmarva.

Hall is the 2017 Teacher of the Year for Phillip Showell. She has been at the Selbyville elementary school for five years. During that time, she spent two years without a classroom of her own, pushing her “art cart” from room to room throughout the day.

“It was actually a really good thing for me. It made me be really organized!” she said. Now, however, Hall has her own room, the walls of which are brimming with recent student work.

She is also certified as a special-education teacher and spends part of each week “pushing in” to special-education classrooms. While her work as the school’s art teacher allows her to work with every student in the school each week, she said she also enjoys her special-education classwork, in which she works one-on-one with students or with small groups.